Marathon brings excitement as Bitcoin halving approaches

Although the Bitcoin halving is seen as a celebration in the larger Bitcoin culture, things tend to be a bit stressful for miners. As Bitcoin miners around the world gather to celebrate block 840,000, miners are bracing for a 50% reduction in rewards for mined blocks while operating costs remain the same.

With the next Bitcoin halving scheduled for April 19, you can imagine Fred Thiel, CEO of Marathon Digital Holdings, the world’s largest publicly traded Bitcoin mining company, might be worried. But while sitting with Thiel just a few days before the halving, he didn’t appear to break a sweat.

Why?

One reason is that Marathon plans to create an alternative revenue stream by leveraging the heat emitted by Bitcoin mining rigs.

“Bitcoin mining itself generates heat very efficiently,” Thiel told Bitcoin Magazine. “Fifty percent of industrial energy expenditure is used to heat things. So imagine if you could capture heat from a Bitcoin miner and the Bitcoin miner could get paid for it. That will help subsidize the cost of electricity.”

During a fireside chat with Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) at the Bitcoin Policy Summit in Washington, D.C. on April 9, 2024, Thiel gave an example of how Marathon plans to utilize the heat produced by miners. Shared.

Thiel explained to Senator Lummis, “Actually, one of the things we’re doing in Nebraska is heating greenhouses and using the heat from Bitcoin mining as a byproduct to start farming shrimp.”

“I think people will start to see this as a way to grow protein in underserved areas,” he added.

Harnessing the heat produced by marathon miners is one of the ways Thiel is trying to change the perception of Bitcoin mining from parasitic to productive.

This fits well with the fact that Marathon continues to improve its ability to use waste gas as fuel for miners.

In late 2023, Marathon launched a pilot project to mine Bitcoin using energy obtained solely from landfill methane, a gas that is 80 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2.

According to Thiel, the project was a success.

“It was a proof of concept to show that we could successfully mine Bitcoin using landfill methane gas,” he told Bitcoin Magazine. “Mining in landfills is very difficult, but we have been able to prove that you can do it very successfully.”

Thiel expanded on these efforts in his conversation with Senator Lummis, uniting the idea that the Marathon could produce heat for use while having a positive impact on the environment.

He told Senator Lummis: “Converting that into methane, then converting it into electricity to generate energy, and the electricity to generate heat. “If we can convert waste products into energy and feed the heat back into industrial processes, we can do more for the environment than many environmentalists would like. At the same time, the cost of mining Bitcoin also becomes very small due to low energy costs.”